Some communities provide waste disposal and recycling facilities for their citizens. In rural communities, such facilities are often in remote areas, separated from housing or other buildings. These facilities are often gated and attended during normal business hours, e.g. from 9 AM to 5 PM, but close after business hours. During business hours, citizens bring their waste and recycling items, typically disposing of the household waste in trash bags placed into a dumpster or compactor, and placing certain types of recyclable items in recycling containers. Attendants at the facilities ensure that citizens obey the rules about providing household waste in bags, and placing recyclable items in an appropriate container.
There are known problems with unauthorized after-hours disposal of waste in some communities. Some people insist up leaving their trash outside the gate of the disposal facility, leading to scattering of trash, odors, attracting scavengers, and a general mess for attendants to clean up the next day. Merely posting signs warning of penalties for dropping off trash after hours is not always effective.
In addition, some waste disposal and recycling facilities charge fees on a per-bag basis, as a way to cover the cost of eventual disposal in a landfill. Accepting fees on a per-bag or other discrete basis requires that an attendant accept cash from citizens when the trash bags are dropped off, or use a credit or debit card terminal to accept other forms of payment. Accepting cash at a waste disposal facility creates a separate set of problems for the facility, such as employee training and monitoring, and security for the collection of cash.
There is therefore a need for a waste disposal facility that allows after-hours dropoff of trash and other items, on an unattended basis, but provides sufficient incentives to citizens to obey the laws and guidelines and place their trash in a place where it is less likely to scatter, create odor problems, or attract scavengers. There is also a need for an improved for-pay trash receptacle suitable for a pay-per-use operation at a waste disposal facility, whether or not attended.
Furthermore, there is a need to encourage citizens to recycle. By promoting a “pay per throw” disposal mentality for landfill-directed waste, municipalities can encourage recycling of certain types of materials (glass, plastic, metal, paper) and thereby reduce the volume of waste that eventually winds up in a landfill. A “pay per throw” approach to waste disposal tends to encourage consumers to reduce their individual expenditures on waste disposal by encouraging recycling to lower volume usage of waste disposal facilities, since each bag of trash has a known cost.
One approach to the after-hours/unattended trash dropoff problem is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,578,762, to Leonard Knappmiller, “Payment Accepting Trash Receptacle”. This patent describes a payment accepting trash receptacle that includes a hollow body having an interior space and a first opening, a receiving assembly pivotably mounted in the first opening, a payment acceptor attached to the hollow body, and an access restrictor cooperatively connected to the payment acceptor, for regulating access to the interior space. One problem with this approach is the limited interior space—it is basically just a limited access garbage can—and the fact that trash placed in the receiving assembly falls directly into the interior space.
There is a need for a pay-per-use receptacle that limits the amount of trash that is received for a payment, but is capable of directing the trash to separate holding container, such as a compactor or dumpster.